154 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 321. 



brownish clots about the base. There were six flowers in 

 a cluster on some of the branches. The plant is almost 

 certain to be at least as hardy as R. Sinensis, coming, as it 

 does, from the wooded hills of Corea, where it was dis- 

 covered by Oldham in 1863. A figure of it has been pre- 

 pared for the Botanical Magazine. 



Andromeda speciosa cassinifolia. — A group of plants in 

 flower of this pretty little shrub was shown last week by 

 Messrs. Veitch & Sons. They had been grown under glass, 

 forced a little, perhaps, and they were heavily laden with 

 clusters of white bell flowers like glorified Lily-of-the-val- 

 ley flowers. The brown wiry stems and ovate-glaucous 

 green leaves set off the pretty flowers to advantage. The 

 plant is quite hardy here, but out-of-doors it never looks so 

 pleasing as did these plants which had been lifted and kept 

 in a house for a few weeks. 



Forsythia intermedia was awarded a certificate, some 

 sprays of it being shown by Messrs. G. Paul & Son. It is 

 a hybrid between F. suspensa and F. viridissima, and is 

 well named, being intermediate between the two. It was 

 raised on the Continent some years ago. It is better than 

 F. viridissima, but inferior to_ F. suspensa, which is one of 

 the most glorious of all our spring-flowering shrubs. This 

 year it is exceptionally good. 



Hybrid Narcissi. — Some beautiful hybrids and crosses 

 among Narcissi have been raised in recent years, and one 

 of the most successful raisers is the Rev. G. H. Engleheart, 

 of Appleshaw, who exhibited a collection of his seedlings 

 at the Royal Horticultural Society meeting last week, when a 

 special effort was made by the Narcissus cult. Some of the 

 seedlings were of value as proving the origin of many pop- 

 ular varieties which had been raised, no doubt, long ago, 

 but whose history had not been recorded. The most dis- 

 tinct of the new combinations was a cross between N. tri- 

 andrus and Empress. This had flowers as large as those of 

 Empress, but with a long plain tube of the palest lemon- 

 yellow shade. Another called Snowdrop, from N. cernuus 

 and N. triandrus, had large drooping flowers with broad seg- 

 ments and a tube one and a half inches long, nearly an inch 

 wide at the mouth, the margin not reflexed, and the whole 

 flower milk-white. Pallidus praecox, crossed with cernuus, 

 had produced a flower which might be called a pure white 

 Empress or Madame De Graaf. Emperor, crossed with 

 Maximus, had resulted in a fine Daffodil of a rich yellow 

 color. Mr. Engleheart said this cross gives excellent color, 

 but almost always smaller flowers than the parents. 

 Poeticus, crossed with triandrus, had yielded a series of 

 pretty forms, and a white seedling Vesta was particularly 

 noteworthy. Clearly it is possible to add considerably to 

 the value of the Narcissus, great though that value is at 

 present, by judicious cross-breeding. Messrs. J. Veitch & 

 Sons perceive this, and their collection of hybrids and 

 crosses, shown last week, was almost as interesting as that 

 of Mr. Engleheart. Among the general collections of Daf- 

 fodils shown for prizes I noted the following for their ex- 

 cellence : Yellows — Golden Spur, Sir Watkin, Henry Irving, 

 Maximus. Whites — Katherine Spurred, Minnie Hulme. 

 White, with yellow corona — Empress, Queen Bess. Yel- 

 low, with orange corona — C. J. Backhouse. 



Beaumontia grandiflora. — This is a magnificent Apocy- 

 naceous climber, which requires plenty of space, liberal 

 treatment and a sunny position in an intermediate house, 

 when it will develop in early spring enormous clusters of 

 white fragrant trumpets, as beautiful as the flowers of Lilium 

 longiflorum, and not unlike them. In the gardens of Earl 

 Cowper, at Panshanger, it has been an annual attraction 

 for many years. This year it is as fine as ever, two large 

 bunches of it being shown at the Royal Horticultural Society 

 last week. For some reason it was called variety superba, 

 although it is exactly the type as represented in the Botan- 

 ical Magazine, t. 3213. The species is a native of the 

 eastern Himalaya, where it scrambles up trees to a great 

 height. In a stove it grows freely, but does not flower 

 well. At Panshanger it is treated something like a vine, 

 the shoots being cut back to a spur, and it is grown in a 



house in which the temperature falls to fifty degrees, in 

 winter. 



Asparagus plumosus Sanderi. — This was awarded a first- 

 class certificate, presumably because it is inferior as a 

 decorative plant to the several varieties we already pos- 

 sess. It differs from all others in its short, apparently 

 aborted leaves, which are scarcely an eighth of an inch 

 long ; in all other respects it is A. plumosus nanus. I am 

 bound to add that it was admired by some authorities, the 

 fact that it got the highest form of certificate implying that 

 it pleased the majority of the members of the Floral Com- 

 mittee. 



Tetrathesa ericoides. — This is a lovely little greenhouse 

 shrub when grown as Mr. Balchin can grow it. He ex- 

 hibited a group of it last week, which won universal 

 admiration, each plant being about eighteen inches high, 

 with numerous elegant shoots clothed with Heath-like 

 leaves and wreathed from top to bottom with the richest 

 rose-purple flowers. It is one of the prettiest of what used 

 to be grown and loved here under the name of New Hol- 

 land plants. 



There was a fine exhibition of new and choice Orchids. 

 Baron Schrceder sent grand spikes of rare Odontoglossums, 

 including O. Wilckeanum, 0. Ruckerianum, O. crispum 

 Schrcederianumand O. Piscatorei Schrcederianum ; glorious 

 flowers all these were. Three plants of his new hybrid 

 Laelia vetellina, one bearing a scape with three flowers, 

 were most attractive to connoisseurs. It is a superb 

 Laelia, and, although its parentage is unknown, its beauty 

 is beyond all doubt, the flowers fully five inches across, in 

 form not unlike L. Perrini, while the color is of the richest, 

 dazzling apricot-yellow, with the narrowest white frill-like 

 margin to the lip. Messrs. Veitch sent a new hybrid Den- 

 drobium called Euryalus, and raised from D. nobile and 

 D. Ainsworthii. It has large flowers as rich in color as D. 

 nobile nobilius, with the large lip almost wholly covered 

 with a deep maroon-crimson blotch. It was awarded a 

 first-class certificate. Phalsenopsis F. L. Ames, the hybrid 

 between P. intermedia and P. amabilis, was shown in good 

 form. Cymbidium eburneo-Lowianum was better than it 

 has yet been seen, a scape bearing eight large yellowish 

 flowers being borne by the plant. Epidendrum Endresio- 

 Wallisii is another pretty little Veitchian hybrid with stems 

 a foot high, short rigid leaves, and flowers colored brown- 

 purple, with magenta lip. The beautiful white-flowered 

 Phalaenopsis Schilleriana vestalis was sent by Mr. Wigan, 

 and Mr. Cookson sent a noble specimen of Dendrobium 

 Venus, his hybrid between D. Falconeri and D. nobile. 

 The plant was two feet high, with twelve stems clothed 

 with flowers usually in pairs on slender pedicels, each as 

 large as D. Falconeri and as rich in color as such a cross 

 could scarcely help being. D. Rolfiae is an interesting hy- 

 brid between D. primulinum and D. nobile. Two plants 

 of it were shown. It resembles the last-named in form and 

 color of segments, but the lip is more like that of D. primu- 

 linum, covered with velvety hairs, yellow, with a rosy 

 tip. 



Sir Trevor Lawrence sent a collection of forms of Dendro- 

 bium superbum, the type, the variety Huttoni, which is white, 

 except the blotch on the lip ; the variety Barkei, which is 

 wholly white, with the faintest flush of pink, and Dayanum, 

 generally called Anosmum Dayanum, which differs from 

 ordinary superbum only in having a truncate lip. Den- 

 drobium Cheltenhamense, also shown by Sir Trevor Law- 

 rence, is a hybrid between D. aureum and D. lateolum, 

 with large flowers, colored cream-yellow, with a few lines 

 of red on the disk of the lip. 



Phajus Sanderianus, with tall well-flowered scapes, was 

 very handsome as shown by Messrs. F. Sander & Co., its 

 rich crimson-brown segments and maroon lip, margined 

 with rose, being very much finer than hitherto seen. 

 Ccelogyne Dayana, from the same establishment, was also 

 well shown. 



Messrs. J. Veitch & Sons exhibited some improved varie- 

 ties of Anthurium Scherzerianum, those in the way of the 



